City Council appoints budget committee members

Thursday

Jan 24, 2013 at 3:15 AM

By Ellen w. Todd and SHAWN P. SULLIVANSanford News Staff

SANFORD — City councilors appointed members of the newly formed budget committee on Tuesday night.

Councilors tapped Thomas Cote, Mark Lucier, Robert Stackpole and Wesley Davie to serve at large for one year on the committee. Interim Mayor Maura Herlihy and Councilors Brad Littlefield and Ken Burgess will represent the council on the committee for the same duration.

The council’s budget subcommittee, comprised of Deputy Mayor Joseph Hanslip, Councilor Fred Smith, Sanford School Committee Chair Kendra Williams and School Committee member Don Jamison, made their recommendations to the council before its vote on Tuesday night.

Two other individuals, Jim Drummey, a longtime member of the now-defunct finance committee, and Everard “Lenny” Horr, a frequent council candidate and a member of the former Sanford Charter Commission, also applied to serve on the committee but were not selected.

Councilor Alan Walsh questioned the method the subcommittee used to arrive at their recommendations, asking specifically why Drummey, a candidate with several years’ experience on the former finance committee, was not selected.

The advertisement to fill the vacancies called for candidates to submit letters of interest and resumes, Hanslip said. Only one applicant — Drummey — did not offer a resume, he said.

Hanslip explained the process used by the subcommittee, saying that applicants were evaluated based on their resumes. Members based their evaluations on each candidate’s experience with developing budgets, purchasing, contracting for services, and familiarity with municipal and school operations, among other criteria.

“There were six very qualified candidates,” Hanslip said.

Walsh asked that the council vote on each candidate separately. The council unanimously approved Cote and Davie and voted in Lucier and Stackpole, 5 to 1, with Walsh casting the dissenting vote. Councilor Burgess was absent from the meeting.

Lucier is a past chair of the Sanford School Committee and owns and operates a local dental practice with his wife. Davie is a manager of enrollment at a Portland health care firm. Cote is a regional marketing manager for a global manufacturer of semiconductors and passive components. Stackpole also is a former chair of Sanford’s school committee, and is a technology administrator for RSU 57.

Reacting to the subcommittee’s recommendations, Walsh said he did not think that the residents of the City of Sanford envisioned a budget committee with three councilors and two former school committee chairmen as its members.

Voters in November handily approved a new charter, which incorporated Sanford as a city on Jan. 1, among other measures. Under the new charter, Sanford’s elected finance committee was discontinued — and the annual town meeting eliminated — and replaced with an appointed budget committee with four at-large members and three councilors.

Davie ran for a three-year term on the finance committee last fall and would have served if voters had rejected the proposed charter. A second candidate on last November’s ballot, Nicole Gervais, did not submit a letter and resume to the council budget subcommittee.

The council is currently working on a new timetable for the budget season. Once the proposed budget is complete, the council will hold two public hearings regarding it. Voters will have the opportunity to either approve or reject the budget at the polls in June.